[9 November 2011: Brian: Can you believe I wrote this back in April 2010? It was my attempt to divine the real meaning of Dear Leader's words in his very public "Thoughts on Flash" statement. The full statement is below, followed by my decrypted summation. Re-posting today as Adobe has announced that that whole Flash-for-mobile-the-full-web thing is over. As we always knew it would be.]

As not all are capable of divining the full meaning of Dear Leader’s words, I shall provide guidance.

Apple has a long relationship with Adobe.

It’s not me. It’s you.

In fact, we met Adobe’s founders when they were in their proverbial garage. Apple was their first big customer, adopting their Postscript language for our new Laserwriter printer. Apple invested in Adobe and owned around 20% of the company for many years. The two companies worked closely together to pioneer desktop publishing and there were many good times. Since that golden era, the companies have grown apart. Apple went through its near death experience, and Adobe was drawn to the corporate market with their Acrobat products. Today the two companies still work together to serve their joint creative customers – Mac users buy around half of Adobe’s Creative Suite products – but beyond that there are few joint interests.

Well, okay, because I’m so much better now, and we’re no longer in the same league, it’s kind of me. But, mostly, it’s you.

I wanted to jot down some of our thoughts on Adobe’s Flash products so that customers and critics may better understand why we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads.

Bwhahahahahahahahahahaha…..

Adobe has characterized our decision as being primarily business driven – they say we want to protect our App Store – but in reality it is based on technology issues. Adobe claims that we are a closed system, and that Flash is open, but in fact the opposite is true. Let me explain.

You are a weak, pink-assed baboon. I hurl my feces at you. Sit there and take it!

First, there’s “Open”.

There is no open. Only Windows (I make joke).

Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary. They are only available from Adobe, and Adobe has sole authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, etc. While Adobe’s Flash products are widely available, this does not mean they are open, since they are controlled entirely by Adobe and available only from Adobe. By almost any definition, Flash is a closed system.

I create magic. I use words here because it is doubtless the only way for your mind to comprehend.

Apple has many proprietary products too.

Once, we were as you. Of this world, mortal.

Though the operating system for the iPhone, iPod and iPad is proprietary, we strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open.

Now we are like gods; advanced beings that give to you what we craft and your feeble mind can perceive of it only as magic. Good.

Rather than use Flash, Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript – all open standards.

God, you suck.

Apple’s mobile devices all ship with high performance, low power implementations of these open standards. HTML5, the new web standard that has been adopted by Apple, Google and many others, lets web developers create advanced graphics, typography, animations and transitions without relying on third party browser plug-ins (like Flash). HTML5 is completely open and controlled by a standards committee, of which Apple is a member.

I am Duke Atriedes.

Apple even creates open standards for the web.

We must because you fail, repeatedly.

For example, Apple began with a small open source project and created WebKit, a complete open-source HTML5 rendering engine that is the heart of the Safari web browser used in all our products. WebKit has been widely adopted. Google uses it for Android’s browser, Palm uses it, Nokia uses it, and RIM (Blackberry) has announced they will use it too. Almost every smartphone web browser other than Microsoft’s uses WebKit. By making its WebKit technology open, Apple has set the standard for mobile web browsers.

Resistance is futile.

Second, there’s the “full web”.

You are an ape. Playing with yourself.

Adobe has repeatedly said that Apple mobile devices cannot access “the full web” because 75% of video on the web is in Flash. What they don’t say is that almost all this video is also available in a more modern format, H.264, and viewable on iPhones, iPods and iPads. YouTube, with an estimated 40% of the web’s video, shines in an app bundled on all Apple mobile devices, with the iPad offering perhaps the best YouTube discovery and viewing experience ever. Add to this video from Vimeo, Netflix, Facebook, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ESPN, NPR, Time, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, People, National Geographic, and many, many others. iPhone, iPod and iPad users aren’t missing much video.

You are a nuisance. Did you honestly believe you were a threat. I should smile at that.

Another Adobe claim is that Apple devices cannot play Flash games. This is true. Fortunately, there are over 50,000 games and entertainment titles on the App Store, and many of them are free. There are more games and entertainment titles available for iPhone, iPod and iPad than for any other platform in the world.

What’s the name of that chunky fellow running Microsoft? How much did he spend on Xbox? Billions! That I will smile at.

Third, there’s reliability, security and performance.

Flash bad. I do believe you are not so stupid as to understand and accept this once I speak of it. I am even communicating in your own words.

Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009. We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash. We have been working with Adobe to fix these problems, but they have persisted for several years now. We don’t want to reduce the reliability and security of our iPhones, iPods and iPads by adding Flash.

Bitch. And slap.

In addition, Flash has not performed well on mobile devices. We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it. Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually ship, but we’re glad we didn’t hold our breath. Who knows how it will perform?

Lay there! I am now to piss on you.

Fourth, there’s battery life.

To achieve long battery life when playing video, mobile devices must decode the video in hardware; decoding it in software uses too much power. Many of the chips used in modern mobile devices contain a decoder called H.264 – an industry standard that is used in every Blu-ray DVD player and has been adopted by Apple, Google (YouTube), Vimeo, Netflix and many other companies.

Do you really all not know this?

Although Flash has recently added support for H.264, the video on almost all Flash websites currently requires an older generation decoder that is not implemented in mobile chips and must be run in software. The difference is striking: on an iPhone, for example, H.264 videos play for up to 10 hours, while videos decoded in software play for less than 5 hours before the battery is fully drained.

You cared enough to send your very best. And it was shite.

When websites re-encode their videos using H.264, they can offer them without using Flash at all. They play perfectly in browsers like Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome without any plugins whatsoever, and look great on iPhones, iPods and iPads.

Are there even other browsers?

Fifth, there’s Touch.

Bwahahahahahahaha…..

Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers.

You are a dinosaur, last of a dying breed; not smart enough or fast enough or aware enough to understand your pending extinction.

For example, many Flash websites rely on “rollovers”, which pop up menus or other elements when the mouse arrow hovers over a specific spot. Apple’s revolutionary multi-touch interface doesn’t use a mouse, and there is no concept of a rollover. Most Flash websites will need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices. If developers need to rewrite their Flash websites, why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript?

Do you see that? Up there, in the sky? That’s called a giant meteor.

Even if iPhones, iPods and iPads ran Flash, it would not solve the problem that most Flash websites need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices.

Our charity and pity would be wasted on you. You cannot survive in this new world.

Sixth, the most important reason.

Besides the fact that Flash is closed and proprietary, has major technical drawbacks, and doesn’t support touch based devices, there is an even more important reason we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. 

Have you ever heard of the word, bukake?

We have discussed the downsides of using Flash to play video and interactive content from websites, but Adobe also wants developers to adopt Flash to create apps that run on our mobile devices.

Your tiny dinosaur brain…

We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform. If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features. We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.

The spice must flow!

This becomes even worse if the third party is supplying a cross platform development tool.

I now find you so disdainful I can no longer speak your name

The third party may not adopt enhancements from one platform unless they are available on all of their supported platforms. Hence developers only have access to the lowest common denominator set of features. Again, we cannot accept an outcome where developers are blocked from using our innovations and enhancements because they are not available on our competitor’s platforms.

Oh, are you still here?

Flash is a cross platform development tool. It is not Adobe’s goal to help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps. It is their goal to help developers write cross platform apps. And Adobe has been painfully slow to adopt enhancements to Apple’s platforms. For example, although Mac OS X has been shipping for almost 10 years now, Adobe just adopted it fully (Cocoa) two weeks ago when they shipped CS5. Adobe was the last major third party developer to fully adopt Mac OS X.

Paybacks are a bitch.

Our motivation is simple – we want to provide the most advanced and innovative platform to our developers, and we want them to stand directly on the shoulders of this platform and create the best apps the world has ever seen. We want to continually enhance the platform so developers can create even more amazing, powerful, fun and useful applications. Everyone wins – we sell more devices because we have the best apps, developers reach a wider and wider audience and customer base, and users are continually delighted by the best and broadest selection of apps on any platform.

Do you know what came at the end of the Jurassic period? Your death. Ha!

Conclusions.

Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.

This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius. And you are Ward Cleaver.

The avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apple’s mobile devices demonstrates that Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content. And the 200,000 apps on Apple’s App Store proves that Flash isn’t necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications, including games.

All will bow down before me!

New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.

You chose the blue pill. I chose the red pill and now can alter time and space.

Dear Leader
April, 2010

*I am not sure how this is related. However, just before exiting Dear Leader’s mind – cause it burns! – I discovered that his favorite song is ‘Pulling Mussels from the Shell.’ This must mean something. Alas, I am too weak to re-enter his mind at this time.

Trust me, boys and girls, 45 years ago, Neil Young was prettty damn cool. Apparently, of the many things Jobs was supposedly working on in the final years and months of his life, one was on improving the fidelity of digitized music:

Musician Neil Young said he was working with the late Steve Jobs on the next iPod.

According to Young, Jobs wanted to create a format that had 20 times the fidelity of current electronic music files. Young claims, Apple's AAC format only holds 5 percent of the full recorded data, while compact discs hold about 15 percent. 

"Steve Jobs was a pioneer of digital music. His legacy is tremendous," Young said. "But when he went home, he listened to vinyl," Young said at the "D: Dive Into Media" conference Tuesday.

Jobs and Young agreed there was a lack of high-quality music formats. They wanted to work on new hardware that was capable of storing files with 100 percent of the data recorded in a studio. The only problem is a music file of that caliber would take 30 minutes to download one song.

Young doesn't have plans to carry on without Jobs, as of yet. Jobs died from cancer at the age of 56 last October.

"I talked to Steve about it. We were working on it," Young said. "You've got to believe if he lived long enough he would eventually try to do what I'm trying to do."

This commercial I wanted to like. 

Samsung spent big on the Super Bowl and, I think, wasted their money.

I have never cared for the Samsung commercials that mock the Apple fanboys. Mostly because those people look nothing like the throngs I see everytime I venture into an Apple Store.

Plus, when you are selling the most, as Samsung currently is, mocking your competitor seems like a losing strategy. Why bring them into the mix?

But the primary reason I have not cared much for this Samsung hate-on-Apple ad campaign is because I think it's target is off, way off. There's plenty of Apple haters out there who no doubt love anyone that mocks Team Apple. My guess is, all the while sceeching that "APPLE IS A MARKETING COMPANY" they are easily swayed by, er, marketing.

But can marketing really be enough to get these haters and Android fanboys to buy Samsung?

Samsung spends almost no time on their actual product! They do not tell you why they are superior choice to Droid or HTC, for example, and I'm not sure if they even mention iPhone directly. It's like they're mocking Apple, but behind their back when they know Apple's not looking.

Seems weak.

Yet for their big, expensive, extended Super Bowl advertisement, I was certain they would step up their game. Instead, Samsung crashed and burned.

Not for trying. But because Steve Jobs was right.

A stylus means you failed.

For reasons I cannot fully understand, Samsung chose to blow their Super Bowl cash wad on the Galaxy Note. That big honking is-it-a-smartphone-is-it-a-tablet device that I seriously doubt anyone will actually pay for. 

But even that is not as big a failure as the stylus, which they so prominently feature -- and which they so laughably suggest would mesmerize the most hardened Apple fanboy.

I don't want to be a fanboy myself here. I am sure that for some people in some use cases, a stylus could be appropriate. I just don't believe the numbers of such people warrant a big media blitz.

Yet the stylus was the pillar upon which the commercial rested upon. All I could think about while watching was...Jobs was right.

I mean, *most* of the time you will not be using a stylus. Where does it go? In your pocket? I'm be terrified I'd puncture my scrotum. What happens if you lose it?

How much will a replacement cost?

Will app developers get lazy and lean on the stylus instead of building great apps that don't require you to pull out a stylus, magnify the screen, and write?

Prior to iPad, I assumed a stylus was necessary. Post-iPad I realized, as did everyone but Samsung, it is a failure. Exactly as Jobs stated. The negatives of its inclusion significantly outweigh the positives of exclusion.

And, yes, Android fanboys. If you buy this device, all the world will know its because you just want to be part of a cult and that you drop your hard earned cash on products just because some big company tells you to.

I'm sure he's not but, hey, I'm fucking pissed cause he didn't give me any stock for spray painting his car, the bitch.

Anyway...

Yesterday, I semi-innocently required if Steve Jobs, he that is now dead but was always spiritual, created the touchscreen swipe UI, now resident on hundreds of millions of personal devices, explicitly to get us all to make the sign of the cross -- up down right left -- over and over and over.

A sort of new-Christian, possibly divine, mystical ritual. The final transformational shift; a path of escape from our daily, hectic, non-spiritual lives by a man keen on creating just such shifts and opening up just such paths.

Probably it's just nothing. A coincidence. 

But I don't want to think that. I want to think this 'sign of the iPhone' is one more globe-spanning hack that Jobs created and cleverly implanted deep in our subconsciousness.

Because, you know, that's how I like to think.

Reader Eugene (@eugenescherba), however, has decided to keep me up all night considering the Facebook logo:

It's an F, right?

Or is it? There's a near-infinite ways of making an F/f but this logo is less an F and more a...(wait for it) bent cross.

Does a bent cross mean anything?

Consider:

Please notice the Crucifix that Pope John Paul II is holding up to the people, at left. Study it closely, and you will realize that it is not a Traditional Crucifix, as we show below. Rather, this Crucifix is known as a "Bent Cross". But, what does that mean? For the answer to that question, let us turn to a Roman Catholic author, Piers Compton, writing in his book, "The Broken Cross: Hidden Hand In the Vatican", Channel Islands, Neville Spearman, 1981.

This Bent Crucifix is "... a sinister symbol, used by Satanists in the sixth century, that had been revived at the time of Vatican Two. This was a bent or broken cross, on which was displayed a repulsive and distorted figure of Christ, which the black magicians and sorcerers of the Middle Ages had made use of to represent the Biblical term 'Mark of the Beast'. Yet, not only Paul VI, but his successors, the two John-Pauls, carried that object and held it up to be revered by crowds, who had not the slightest idea that it stood for anti-Christ."

As you can see, the Crucifix which Pope John Paul II is holding up to adoring crowds is not the Traditional Crucifx, but is the Satanic Bent, or Broken, Cross! This Bent Crucifix was created by Satanists to depict Antichrist and his Mark of the Beast! Very soon, you will see the appearance of a global leader, calling himself The Christ, who will claim to be Jesus Christ returned, the Jewish Messiah, and the Avatar figure for which all the major religions are awaiting, all in one man. This will be Antichrist. Then, very quickly thereafter, a global religious leader will step forward to aid the Antichrist; this religious leader will possess the same miraculous power of Antichrist. At this moment, the prophecy of Revelation 13:11-14 will be fulfilled; this global religious leader will be the Biblical False Prophet.

The New World Order Plan calls for this global religious leader [False Prophet] to be the Roman Catholic Pope, whomever he is at the time; certainly, John Paul II's use of this Satanic Bent Cross is consistent with this part of the Plan.

The moral of the story is thus: sometimes, the Internet can be totally fucking awesome.

Did Steve Jobs create up down right left touchscreen scrolling just to get the world to make the sign of the cross billions of times every day? Could he have know?

Was this a subconscious decision? Guided?

A complete, utter coincidence?

Try it. One finger, up, down, side to side. It even leaves a cross imprint on the glass.

It's America so if a person's dead, we can write anything we want about them, right? Even put quotes around shit or tell stories without any evidence whatsover?

Right?

Okay, good.

Anyway, in publicizing his OMG APPLE OMG STEVE JOBS book, author Adam Lashinsky offers up a great even if likely completely bullshit story about Steve Jobs yelling at some Girl Scout.

Another Steve Jobs post...

Jobs had a profound impact on the American economy, on Silicon Valley, was part of the birth of the personal computing industry, which has changed the world, and was CEO of what is now the world's biggest tech company.

Though I suspect I post this stuff for the same reason others post this stuff -- not only for the page views but because Jobs is not someone we will ever understand.

This is just some ex-Google employee, possibly with an axe to grind, possibly not telling the truth. But it did make me chuckle:

The point is, they deliberately inserted the food as a part of the bigger picture in lieu of more money. They set it up so that you would be placated by it somehow.

At that point, I was still buying the hype of the early days, and I now regret to say that it worked on me. I took it hook, line and sinker and accepted their offer. My effective salary was some amount of cash plus the food as it was right then and there.

For a while, this worked. I was able to get a decent meal at regular intervals without having to hunt for it. There was a certain amount of consistency if you knew where to look for it. One cafe in particular was actually an import of a local chain of taquerias called Andale. You could be sure of finding certain foods there every single day, and not surprisingly, they saw me a lot.

Then something changed. It all seems to coincide with a certain new CFO coming on board, but I can't prove that's what happened. All I know is that certain things started being cut. Entire meals were eliminated from certain cafes. Some that were open for breakfast and dinner in addition to lunch were now lunch-only. Others slid their hours back. Still more wound up being underprovisioned so that even though they might have been open, they ran out of food well before closing time.

I don't know...

I can certainly understand Google HR setting a (too high) value to all the food and other services they offer, and suggesting that be part of any discussion of pay package. (Even if it does come with the obligation of never exiting the Google office.)

But cutting back on food and food hours?

Google has so much money that if it's true they've cut back on food, food quality, hours of service, than I suspect it's part of a larger decision to become less, well, pussy-like.

I think it's in that new Adam Lashinsky book about Apple where I read that Steve Jobs didn't want work to be fun but rather be hard. Hard, not fun, is what drove greatness.

For all Google's money, for all their well-fed, happy employees, I ask you:

what have they done in the past ten years? what have they *innovated* this century?

Not shit, that's what. (I wasn't really asking you.)

Perhaps the days of the coddled, babied, everyone is a star platinum-plated perks offered at Silicon Valley's richest companies are in their final days? 

Perhaps this is still another *business management* decision the iconoclastic 'marketer' Steve Jobs got right.